Stockholm-listed online betting and gaming operator Kindred Group is pulling the plug on its US ambitions with a decision to exit the North American market.
Kindred will begin its withdrawal from the United States and Canada immediately and expects to complete the process by the end of the second quarter of 2024.
Kindred’s Unibet brand is currently active in Ontario, Canada, and in the US states of Arizona, Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, having withdrawn from Iowa in December 2022.
Kindred’s North American operations generated revenue of £6.4 million in the third quarter of this year, a decrease of 11 per cent over the previous year on a constant currency basis.
The company expects the North American exit, coupled with a 300-person reduction in overall headcount and other operational savings, to lead to an annualised gross cost saving of £40 million.
“The cost reduction actions announced today are both necessary and decisive,” said Nils Andén, Interim CEO of Kindred Group. “While it is never a desire to inform valued colleagues of redundancies, this puts us in a stronger position to secure long-term growth for Kindred across our locally regulated core markets.
“We can now focus our resources and tech capacity towards strategic initiatives and selected markets where we see clear potential to grow our market share.”
The decision to exit North America follows the launch of strategic review in April of this year, which is ongoing.
Kindred’s board of directors currently believes that shareholder value will be “maximised through a third-party transaction”, with the initiatives announced today described as being “complementary to this process”.
Shares in Kindred Group Plc. (STO:KIND-SDB) closed 2.46 per cent lower at SEK92.80 per share in Stockholm Tuesday, prior to this morning’s announcement and publication of the company’s results for the third quarter of 2023.